Friedrich Albert Fallou

Friedrich Albert Fallou

Friedrich Albert Fallou , also Frédéric Albert Fallou (born November 11, 1794 in Zörbig , † September 6, 1877 in Diedenhain near Waldheim , Saxony ) was a German lawyer and soil scientist . As a private scholar , he dealt with the history of the formation of field and forest soils and published six books on it. He is considered to be one of the founders of scientific soil science.

Life

Friedrich Albert Fallou comes from a Huguenot family . He was the son of a judicial officer, spent his childhood in Rochlitz and Grimma , there as a pupil at the Princely School . From 1814 to 1817 he studied law at the University of Leipzig . From 1818 to 1824 he worked as a lawyer in Colditz (Saxony). In 1825 he was appointed town clerk of Waldheim . Here he developed a versatile activity as an administrative officer at the city court. In addition, he wrote historical-topographical descriptions of Saxon landscapes and cities under the pseudonym Balduin zum Eichberg, which he published in the magazine Saxonia . In 1833 he resigned from his office as town clerk and continued to practice as a lawyer until 1850. Since then he has devoted himself almost exclusively to geological, mineralogical and soil studies. In 1856 he moved to Diedenmühle near Waldheim in the Zschopautal. Here he lived as a private scholar until his death.

Co-founder of soil science

During his work as a lawyer, Fallou became interested in the different types of soil in his homeland and had already begun geological, petrographic and mineralogical studies in the 1930s. Due to his professional competence, he was soon considered to be an excellent expert on the Saxon granulite area . In the years after 1840 he devoted his free time more and more to the history of the development of the field and forest soils. His first major publication, a geognostic- agronomic description of the mountain formations of the Muldengau and their influence on vegetation, published in 1845, was awarded a prize by the Princely Jablonowski Society in Leipzig.

His book Die Ackererden des Kingdom of Saxony was published in 1853 and had a second edition in 1855. Through numerous study trips to Saxony and the neighboring countries, he increasingly recognized the need to make soil science useful for practical agriculture and forestry. In his two books Beginnings of Soil Science (1857, 2nd ed. 1865) and Pedology or General and Special Soil Science (1862), he combined the knowledge of the soil at that time into a closed teaching building.

His late works are also to be classified as significant in terms of the history of science : Land of the Kingdom of Saxony and its surroundings ... (1869) and The main soil types of the North and Baltic Sea countries of the German Empire viewed from a natural science perspective (1875). Several articles in the journal Der Chemische Ackersmann published by Julius Adolph Stöckhardt made his soil science results known in agricultural practice. Although “only” a private scholar, Friedrich Albert Fallou is one of the pioneering co-founders of scientific soil science.

Major works

• The mountain formations between Mittweida and Rochlitz, the Zschopau and both hollows and their influence on the vegetation. Attempt of a geognostic-agronomic description . Staritz Leipzig publisher 1845.
• The soil of the Kingdom of Saxony and the surrounding area, geognostically examined and classified. A pedological sketch . Freiberg 1853; 2. verb. u. Probably published by Gerhard Leipzig, 1855.
• The beginnings of soil science . G. Schönfeld's Buchhandlung Dresden 1857, 2nd edition 1865.
• Pedology or general and special soil science . G. Schönfeld's bookstore Dresden 1862.
• The land of the Kingdom of Saxony and its surroundings in all neighboring states has been scientifically examined in terms of national, agricultural and forestry . G. Schönfeld's bookstore Dresden 1869.
• The main soil types of the North Sea and Baltic Sea countries of the German Empire considered scientifically. Sketch . G. Schönfeld's bookstore Dresden 1875.

literature

• Hans Joachim Fiedler : The soil science work of Friedrich Albert Fallous in today's soil geological point of view . In: Archives for Forestry Vol. 19, 1970, pp. 1027-1035.
• W. Fischer: Friedrich Albert Fallou, the founder of soil science . In: Der Aufschluss Vol. 6, 1955, pp. 98-99.
• Rudolph Zaunick:  Fallou, Friedrich Albert. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 5, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1961, ISBN 3-428-00186-9 , p. 21 ( digitized version ).

Web links

Wikiquote: Friedrich Albert Fallou  - Quotes